3:30 on an Olympic Friday? Great time for Michael Gove to bury news

Teachers at academies will no longer need qualifications.

Interesting that the Department for Education chose today to remove requirements for teachers working at academies to have Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). The change means that a centrally approved year of teacher training is no longer necessary – the onus of choosing and training employees will fall to schools themselves. A spokesman for the Department for Education told the BBC:

This policy will free up academies to employ professionals – like scientists, engineers, musicians, university professors, and experienced teachers and heads from overseas and the independent sector - who may be extremely well-qualified and are excellent teachers, but do not have QTS status.

A positive change then – freeing schools from lots of unneccessary bureaucracy? The Spectator thinks so:

This change might sound technical but its importance is that it means that academies will now be able to employ people who have not gone through a year of teacher training. Previously, an academy couldn’t have employed, say, James Dyson to teach design without him having done a year in a teacher training college.

It's a shame that someone who knows alot about vaccum cleaners hasn't yet been allowed to teach people about this. Still, why would Gove announce this today, when everyone's attention is on the Games?

Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, has some reasons:

Our 2011 ComRes poll showed that 89% of parents want a qualified teacher to teach their child, with just 1% comfortable about those without Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) taking charge of a class.

By his own admission, Michael Gove is relaxed about profit-making from schools. He takes his inspiration from Sweden where profits are being made by reducing the number of qualified teachers, and where educational standards have fallen. By contrast, the reason Finland scores so highly in international tables is because they value teachers, trust teachers and pay teachers well.

“Parents and teachers will see this as a cost-cutting measure that will cause irreparable damage to children’s education. Schools need a properly resourced team of qualified teachers and support staff, not lower investment dressed up as ‘freedoms’.